2022 Grading

Part 1: Participant Custom Fields

To allow for information to be collected about participant's previous playing history, we would recommend custom fields are configured and provided to the participants during their registration.

For the purposes of grading, custom fields are configured on a competition/season basis by the association. These fields could be used to collect a range of details from participants to assist in your association's unique grading process. For example, you can ask about player history across multiple associations or representative history.

When creating new custom fields for grading, there will be two checkboxes you will need to tick at the bottom of the page under Settings. At the bottom left, the Clubs checkbox under Profiles & Reports needs to be selected, and at the bottom right, the Club Forms checkbox under Forms needs to be selected. This will ensure the custom fields are applied across all organisations within the association and that clubs can view the custom fields in their participant report.

Once the custom fields have been set up, they can be edited, reordered or deleted.

Associations - Setting Up Custom Fields

To create a custom field, you will need to take the following steps. For further information about custom fields, click here.

1. Navigate to Competition Management
2. Select the Competition and Season
3. Select Registration
4. Select Custom Fields
5. Add/edit/delete custom fields
6. Ensure that the Profiles and Reports – “Clubs” option is selected (as described above)

Example Custom Fields for Associations

What team/grade/division did you play in last season?

Have you previously played for a different club or association?

• Yes
• No

(Dropdown response)

- (If Yes) Please provide the name of the club/association that you played for last season

(Text box response)

Part 2: Club Participant Report for Team Nomination Grading 

Once the custom questions have been configured, participants will respond to these questions when completing their registration. This will occur for both Participant to Club and Participant to Club Team registrations. The club administrator will then need to download the participant report.

Allocating Participants

Using the information provided by the participants in their answers to the club/association's custom field questions, combined with the club’s maintained historic data and the administrator’s expertise, the administrator can allocate the registered participants to teams. For information about allocating participants to teams, click here. 

Once all participants have been allocated to teams, the administrator will then need to download the participant report again (see above for instructions) which will now include the grade and team allocation.

This report can then be manipulated to include only the columns that are required by the association for grading purposes, for example:

• Participant personal details (e.g. name, DOB, gender)
• New to club/association
• Club name
• Team name
• Grade name
• Age group
• Answers to custom questions   

As a club, you may also wish to include a column where additional notes are included.

Once relevant information has been collected, you can then allocate the teams to the grades (set by the association). For information about allocating teams to grades, click here.

Presentation of Report for Association

• Each association will have a different preference for the information that is provided by each club and how that information is best presented. Therefore it is recommended that you first touch base with your association before developing a report to provide on behalf of your club
• It is recommended that you remove from the participant report all of the unnecessary fields/columns so there is only the information essential for grading remaining
• This information may then be sorted in order of team/grade. Alternatively, a separate workbook sheet may be used for each team/grade to increase the readability of the information
• The report can then be provided to the association administrator so they can complete their grading process. 

Please note: this participant report could be provided in a number of formats (e.g. raw excel workbook, PDF, word document).

Part 3: Association Grading

• Each association will need to determine the custom questions required for their unique grading process, as well as providing clubs with the requirements for the submission of the grading report
• To complete the grading process, association administrators can review several different sources of data, including: reports submitted by each club, the information available in the team entries and participant reports in PlayHQ, and the historic data maintained by the association
• Once the grading process has been completed by the association, clubs will be notified for review and finalisation.